---
title: He replied: “I came by myself.” — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: He replied: “I came by myself.” Who acts: son. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Simbukumbukwana., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Simbukumbukwana., sentence 49

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He replied: “I came by myself.”

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**Who acts:** son · **What happens:** reply, come · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Simbukumbukwana.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (son), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg71335:8:49
# text = He replied: “I came by myself.”
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	6	punct	_	_
4	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	_
7	by	by	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	myself	myself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | son |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **come** *in a quote* | past | son |  |  |  |  | by son | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme by myself=Location |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Project Gutenberg book 71335 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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